


Growing Pains

by mostlyharmless



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Massage, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, insecure rose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-11 01:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7869793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostlyharmless/pseuds/mostlyharmless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave has sore legs, so obviously Rose can't read in peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing Pains

**Author's Note:**

  * For [awespic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/awespic/gifts).



You close your book with a loud slap that could possibly be construed as passive aggressive, and sigh in a way that could not possibly be construed as anything else. Somehow, it's still not enough to draw your brother's attention from his umpteenth lap of the lab ceiling.

"Do you mind?" you ask.

"I'm so touched by all the sympathy comin' my way," he mumbles at the ceiling, continuing his lazy drifting up and down as he bobs along like a helium balloon left outside overnight.

"Always happy to oblige," you say, before you think. Then, "Consider that a genuine offer. What's wrong?"

"I told you, my legs are sore."

Whoops. Well, he should know by now not to ramble in your direction when you're reading. "Perhaps the muscles are atrophying from lack of use."

"I wish. Barely fly at all around our gravitationally challenged homedogs, 'cause I'm such a goddamn gentleman."

"Even so, it can't be all the exercise you've been getting sitting on the couch or at Karkat's computer. Unless I have been misled and legs are indeed involved in 'kickin' it'?"

He turns midair to face you, and there's the trace of a grin if you know how to look (and you do). "That would explain my amazing thighs. No, it doesn't feel like that sort of pain anyway. It just feels like someone's trying to pop my kneecaps off from behind."

"Oh. You probably have growing pains."

"That's a thing?"

"Yes," you say, remembering nights when you were just a little smaller, the pungent scent of Vicks and fingers in your hair. "It's just your legs getting longer."

"Oh." He floats down to flop into the space next to you on the sofa, and this time you notice the difference in the level of your shoulders. He's nearly at the perfect height to rest your head on. When did that happen? "So I'm getting taller, huh…"

His brother was tall, so it stands to reason that Dave will be, too. But you don't need to tell him that. You're sure he's already faced that particular fact in the mirror.

"Height isn't even that big a deal when you can fly," you say instead.

"You're just bitter that I'm winning."

"I wouldn't give you the pleasure."

He snorts, then looks thoughtful. "Guess I appreciate the cold hard evidence that we aren't going to be stuck in thirteen year old bodies for eternity, or however this god tier shit even works." He digs his knuckle into his leg surreptitiously. "Fucking hurts though."

"Would you like me to rub it better, darling?"

"Shit yeah, knock yourself out."

Fuck. You'd meant that sarcastically, but of course he knows that. So Dave wants to play? You'll never blink first.

"Lie on the floor, then," you say, standing up.

"Sure," he says, standing up too. His face is as composed as ever, but he bounces a little on the balls of his feet before stretching out face down on the rug, and you smile.

It takes a great effort to work out how to arrange yourself beside him without betraying how utterly awkward you are. You end up with your legs crossed. His head, pillowed on his arms, is looking the other way, so he doesn't see the way you get stuck hovering your hand over the back of his knee.

"Ugh," he says, and you snatch your hand back. "There's gross troll bug snacks under the couch."

He totally didn't see you flail. Vriska's not the only one with all the luck. "We'll guilt the likely suspects into cleaning later. I am going to touch you now."

And then you do, firmly and confidently. He'd said the backs of his knees hurt, so you press your palm into the very top of his calf, over the soft flannel of his red pyjamas. His muscle twitches a little under your hand, and you feel the waves of discomfort coming off him. Well, he started it. Or, escalated it, anyway.

"How is this?" you ask, stroking firmly down the length of his calf. He grunts back at you, so you do it again. "It's been a while since my mother did this to me," you say.

"Yeah?" Dave mumbles into his arm.

You start working on both calves as you talk, squeezing firmly before rubbing the heels of your hands down the sore muscle. "Yes. I had them quite badly when I was eight or nine, but they eventually went away."

"And your mom rubbed your legs for you?"

"Yes, whenever it would keep me awake," you say. Perhaps she'd hear you tossing and turning, you still don't know how she always knew, but she'd be there with the tub of cream and a soft voice. At the time you'd found it infantilising and smothering.

"That's nice," says Dave, voice low, and now you find, suddenly, that your throat is too tight to tack on any flippant comments regarding that or her other qualities. You tuck his sentiment deep inside, new light on an old memory.

You clear your throat. "In any case, I meant to say it's been a while, so I can't vouch for my technique."

"So you've gone from quack brain therapist to quack massage therapist?" Dave's voice is slow and relaxed, and you steal a look up the line of his back.

He's flopped out, the discomfort from earlier gone, and you feel a tiny prick of pride. Despite the air of chill he strives to project (he could write the manual on artful slouching), you're not fooled. You let your gaze linger on the way his cheek is smushed into the carpet, now.

"Haven't you seen my wall of certifications?" You're starting to ease into it, too. It's nicer than you'd expected, the feel of him warm and solid under your hands, the sound of his easy breathing. Your pride grows when you remember the boy who could barely touch you when you sat side by side, the fact that he'll let you do this, even if it's half a game.

"If you haven't actually got an office with a wall of fake certificates somewhere in this meteor I am going to be really disappointed now."

"It's on my to-do list."

"Make sure it has like. A big fake plant in the corner and. Ahhh hmm."

"Oh look," you say, kneading his calves, feeling strangely light, "I think I found a way to make you go quiet. Hallelujah, now the masses may rejoice."

"Hallelujah," he echoes into his arm. "Shit though, that feels so much better."

"You want me to stop?" you ask, surprised at the curl of disappointment in your stomach.

He's quiet for a bit, and you tone down your massage into light squeezing, cooling down. "M'be my back is sore too," he mumbles.

"I'll see what I can do," you say, shaking your hands out. "But could you please pull your shirt up? The friction is getting unpleasant."

"Muhh," he says, sleepily, and as you climb up and straddle his thighs gingerly he reaches back to grab a fistful of the fabric below his collar and tugs the whole thing up to his armpits.

Your breath catches. There are several long marks cutting right across his spine on his lower back. They look like if you touched them you could feel the edges, and they're so red they're nearly purple.

"What?" he says, sounding tense. "Mesmerised by my—okay no stopping that joke before I step into a self-own."

"You're learning," you say. "And no, the marks on your back just surprised me."

He flinches underneath you. "Yeah, well, I'm bladekind, what do you expect?"

"What?"

"Those cuts are just from training," he says, and then you see what he must be talking about: silvery scars crisscrossing here and there. One of them down by his ribs is knotted and pink, and you know it must have been a horrible slice. "Being as sicknasty as I am with a blade didn't come easy, you know."

You don't know. You are just as deadly in battle as he is, and your hands are not pricked with silvery scars. You nearly make a joke about your evidently superior dextrosity, but you realise he isn't scarred from cutting himself, not from these angles. Not on his back.

"No, I… I mean these," you say, tongue tripping, tracing one with your finger. "You have some stretch marks."

"What??" He tries to crane his head to look, bumping you up and down in an undignified manner. "Whoa, they're purple. What the hell is that?"

"I just told you, stretch marks. How did you not notice them?" You fight to keep your voice even. The topic has already slipped by and you're snarking on autopilot. You knew, but you didn't _know_.

"I dunno. Shit, it looks like I got mauled by a really short bear with too many fingers."

"It's the price you pay for getting taller." You wish you had something better to say, that you were less awkward without your therapist shtick, which somehow you can't stomach playing at right now.

That's not how the two of you work, though. You come at things sideways, backwards, through a veil of humour and deniability, you tease it until it winds into something real. Is that what he needs? Is that any different…? Useless rage is coming home to settle solid and hot under your ribcage.

"Do you have these?" His voice is light and curious, like he hasn't caught on to your inner struggle.

You clear your throat and push down the anger. "Not on my back, and not that colour, but yes. It's just what happens to skin when you grow too fast."

"Huh."

He twists his shoulder and tries to inspect them from under his arm. It would probably be easier without shades. You still haven't seen him take them off—but then, you think, in the short time you've spent together on the meteor so far, how much he _has_ shown you. Smiles, laughter, 4 a.m. rambles, decent cooking, bad raps. Little pieces of him and you, slowly uncurling from the seeds planted during the years on Pesterchum. Handing you pads through the bathroom door when you forget, mixtapes, dramatic readings, human solidarity on grubloaf night. His bare, scarred back stretched out before you. He's come a long way already, all on his own.

Maybe you could take this lull as a cue to slide off him and change the topic, but something burns in you to keep touching him. If you can't quite command the words, you can at least give him back that rare boneless peace. "Do you still want a massage?"

He flops down nearly immediately. "Yeah." For a moment you are overwhelmed by how much you love this nerd. You have all the time in the world to learn how to be a good sister.

You roll your thumbs into the skin there, over old silvery scars bisected by the vivid red evidence of growth.

"They do look pretty badass," you tell him.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it!! This was my first time pinch hitting :3 Huge thanks to LostOzian who let me chill at her office to do this!! And thanks to Malik and Loft for the last minute beta!


End file.
